New Build Review

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Ethereal_Dragon

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Ok, so I posted back in January that I was going to build a setup for my brother, but it still hasn't been done yet. He was dragging his feet in the finance dept. Now, with cash in-hand, ready to go.

Budget for the build is $1,000 including monitor, but we haven't picked that out yet. I told him the monitor is his decision, and he should do some homework on it. We have $200-250 left in the budget for it, and he is thinking 24" or so.


Upfront cost: $861.88
After MIR: $796.88

The extension cables listed aren't a big deal, if they end up not being needed, I am going to buy them from him. Getting them as a just in case.

The only thing on the list I will NOT be ordering from Newegg is the CPU. A locale computer shop has the following, not sure what we will go with yet... I have given him the options, but I haven't heard back yet.

  • Intel Core i5-2400 - $149.99
  • Intel Core i5-2500k - $179.99


We are hoping to place this order this weekend maybe.
 
As far as the 2400 vs. 2500k, the system is going to remain stock, no overclock. Personally, with me living in Illinois, and my brother in Ohio, I have no way to assist if there is ever an issue, and I don't know that he would be comfortable having it OC'd.

So comparing the 2 bone stock, is there enough of a benefit to really justify the $30 premium? Yeah it's just $30, but that could be used towards the monitor funds....
 
It's going to be used mainly for gaming. Nothing terribly hardcore. Some Battlefield 3 maybe, not sure what other new games would be used on it right now.
 
I just got off of the phone with my brother. He has opted to go with a 120 Gig SSD as well, wants the memory bumped up to 16 Gigs, and is good with the i5-2500k.

For the SSD, we are going with the OCZ Agility 3 120 Gig. I have the 60 gig version in my desktop and laptop, and I like them. He will run the OS, and some software off of this drive, and will use the 500 Gig drive for storage, and the games. On my setup, I only have Windows booting off of the 60 Gig drive, and all my games are installed to a 500 Gig drive, then I have a 2 TB drive for file storage.

Newegg.com - OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

The budget BEFORE the monitor is $1100 up front, and we are at $1,065 or so, and then just under $1,000 after the rebates. He is supposed to get me the funds TODAY to get it ordered. I'm getting excited to do another build!!
 
Actually, I did just switch from the Agility to the Vertex. For the same size, it only ended up being a few dollars difference.

Another thing I just thought of.... I SURE hope that the ASUS board I picked has a quick boot option. The Gigabyte board I have, GA-X38-DQ6, does NOT have quick boot option, and it takes about 35 seconds or so just to complete the POST. I emailed Gigabyte about it to see if any of their BIOS offer that option, and they don't at all.... LAME. My laptop almost boots before my desktop completes POST. How embarrasing is that?
 
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